Freshman classes fill up

Thousands of students registered for classes during the week of Oct. 24 through 28 for Spring 2006. Thousands of students were also disappointed, as many of them did not get into their choice classes.

Classes filled up during the early hours of freshman registration as hundreds of freshmen tried to sign up for core classes, many of which were taken by sophomores and upperclassmen. Freshmen students Jessica Robinson and Abby Goodrich are two of the many students who had great difficulty finding core classes.

“I was just frustrated because I went to the library an hour before registration. PAWS malfunctioned, and it froze,” Robinson said. “I had to go to the Registrar’s office to register. That was around 9:30, and by then most core classes were filled. There are also not enough 1000 and 2000 Spanish classes, so obviously I couldn’t register for much.”

Goodrich, on the other hand, sees preferential treatment of some students as a key reason for the class shortage.

“I really don’t think the athletes should have been able to register early. I believe we are going to college to get higher education. Education is a priority. If anything, practices should be scheduled around school,” Goodrich said.

Advisor holds and other holds due to tickets or dues contributed to some painfully slow registration.

This is largely a problem in the school of liberal arts and sciences, where 39 of a student’s first 42 hours are taken.

Dr. Beth Rushing is the dean of the liberal arts and science school here at GC&SU.

“Other schools in our campus might not have as big of a problem concerning registration because they know how many students they can have. They have a set number and requirements at other schools. We have a large number of freshmen and sophomores registering for core classes, as opposed to juniors and seniors who are separately applying to different schools according to their major. Other schools can turn down people. With liberal arts and sciences, it’s harder. We can’t turn people down because they are taking core classes.”

Several core classes such as math, foreign languages, the sciences and English were the first to go during registration.

Many thought that this was due to the large freshman class admitted this year.

“We certainly have a growing freshman class,” Rushing said. “We didn’t take too many freshman, but we took a certain number of freshman and anticipated that some of them will not go here. But they did, so obviously we’re becoming more popular. And that’s a good problem to have.”

Classes also filled up fast due to the number of students who dropped classes this semester and need to retake next semester. Last year, 22 percent of math modeling students withdrew the class. Eight percent of all classes last year were withdrawn.

Steps are being taken in order to fix registration problems. Regulating drops for next year could be a possibility. It is a proposal that Rushing is working on.

“A lot of times students drop classes without so much as talking to the instructors. I’ve even heard of some students dropping because they don’t have an A. I don’t think students realize that sometimes you have to stick around or just talk to the professor,” Rushing said.

Some classes have also been increased. Two weeks ago, a seat was added to several English 1102 classes to respond to the demands for that class. Instructors are getting incentives if they choose to teach more classes, but as Rushing said, they are more or less an uncommon practice.

“I won’t go around asking the faculty to teach more classes,” Rushing said. “Not many are willing to teach an extra class. The instructors here at GC&SU do a full load, and asking them to teach another class just adds more work when they already have so many. But if they approach me and tell me they can teach another class, then I definitely will welcome that.”

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Dec 2 2005. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry